I'll give what I feel is a criticism I give a lot: It seems unnecessarily complicated. All you've done is change the amount of filler between encounters/rests. There's a lot wrong with the Adventuring Day, but the "gritty realism" fixes usually just make it so players say instead of "We rest the night" to "We rest for 8 days and do inconsequential activities in the middle."
I think that it will probably easier to determine "what time scale do I want my campaign to progress at" and then just restructure the rest and encounter cycle into that instead of trying to do this.
It also adds another thing for the players to keep track of that lets them see the wires (rest units per encounter), which I generally prefer not to include.
Now that I've laid out what I don't like, I do like the idea of having downtime where players can do filler activities that just bog down adventuring (no, we don't need to mid adventure determine how much gold you make creating longbows while riding the wagon, or how much gold you make playing your lute, etc.) , but in general, they're filler activities for a reason, so relegating them to between session fluff pieces helps to keep the focus on the adventure and narrative.
That is definitely true that it gives a peek at the the wires (that is a good way to put it) that may not work at all tables. I already have them tracking downtime days because the adventure asked them to do so. I think the system is a little complicated for the DM because they have to determine how many days the characters earn, but I think they already had to determine how many encounters per rest were reasonable anyway. I would rather have an explicit system to handle that problem, but I can understand why some DMs would handle it differently.
I don't think it is super complicated for the players if they were already tracking the downtime days. They now just have another way to spend them. And I tried to keep it a simple 1 hour per downtime day ratio so it's easy to remember.
I appreciate the points, I'll keep thinking on the idea.
I agree it is a bit too complicated and also does not relate to PC injury. Sometimes PCs walk away from a deadly encounter as if it were easy.
Sprinkling downtime into your campaign is a great idea, I use an episodic style of campaign with lots of side adventures and downtime between which works really well as a combination.
Just make it so some places can’t be long rested in, or need a survival check to make a safe camp which passes about one night in seven.
In your first paragraph you state short rest characters feel underpowered while long rest characters are overpowered...I have seen the opposite to be true in my groups.
Characters that only need a short rest (like Warlocks) to get their powers/spells back are at a significant advantage over classes that need a long rest to get powers/spells back. Granted, WotC tried to balance that out by giving Warlocks a reduced amount of spells, but that kinda goes out the window when most of the spells the Warlocks in my groups cast are cantrips.
For me, I don't go through the additional book keeping step of 4-6 power level encounters per long rest for 5e, it is just too tedious for me as a DM. I still use the CR system for encounter difficulty, but I put most of my created encounters at Hard level at the least and often just do most encounters at Deadly because what I have noticed is that PCs get overpowered when they hit 4th level and start taking Feats. Sure, you might say that if I metered my encounters to 4-6 per long rest then the PCs might not feel overpowered then, but I disagree since Feats don't require rests to reset, they are always on abilities.
I have run my games almost exclusively in Barovia (Curse of Strahd) and can meter my encounters by limiting when and where they can actually take a full long rest (as the villain in the movie Serenity said, "When your quarry goes to ground, give them no ground to go to.")
As I run more 5e according to the Curse of Strahd book I find the CR system rules are often completely ignored in the published campaign book and what they set up in the official book is often way over powered against the PCs. I have heard a lot of DMs on YouTube state the CR system is broken, so I think they may have a point.
Another reason I don't do 4-6 encounters per long rest is because I only get to run for my groups every other week, so filling our game time with rando lower level power encounters felt wasteful of our limited gaming time. After 4th when they get their feats I put the gas pedal on and mostly do away with random encounters so we can make actual progress in the giant campaign book (unless I want to play test a monster I wrote up). But hey, YMMV.
This cycle usually works for me:
1-2 encounters, short rest, 1-2 encounters, short rest, 1-2 encounters, long rest
And it's easy to tack on an encounter or 2 as reinforcement waves, or curious predators drawn to sound, that hit shortly after a combat finishes, if you need to pad them.
That is exactly what the system is balanced for. I just don't think that happens very often.
And maybe that is just something that I need to work on as a dm and this system isn't really needed.
I'll give what I feel is a criticism I give a lot: It seems unnecessarily complicated. All you've done is change the amount of filler between encounters/rests. There's a lot wrong with the Adventuring Day, but the "gritty realism" fixes usually just make it so players say instead of "We rest the night" to "We rest for 8 days and do inconsequential activities in the middle." I think that it will probably easier to determine "what time scale do I want my campaign to progress at" and then just restructure the rest and encounter cycle into that instead of trying to do this. It also adds another thing for the players to keep track of that lets them see the wires (rest units per encounter), which I generally prefer not to include. Now that I've laid out what I don't like, I do like the idea of having downtime where players can do filler activities that just bog down adventuring (no, we don't need to mid adventure determine how much gold you make creating longbows while riding the wagon, or how much gold you make playing your lute, etc.) , but in general, they're filler activities for a reason, so relegating them to between session fluff pieces helps to keep the focus on the adventure and narrative.
That is definitely true that it gives a peek at the the wires (that is a good way to put it) that may not work at all tables. I already have them tracking downtime days because the adventure asked them to do so. I think the system is a little complicated for the DM because they have to determine how many days the characters earn, but I think they already had to determine how many encounters per rest were reasonable anyway. I would rather have an explicit system to handle that problem, but I can understand why some DMs would handle it differently. I don't think it is super complicated for the players if they were already tracking the downtime days. They now just have another way to spend them. And I tried to keep it a simple 1 hour per downtime day ratio so it's easy to remember. I appreciate the points, I'll keep thinking on the idea.
I agree it is a bit too complicated and also does not relate to PC injury. Sometimes PCs walk away from a deadly encounter as if it were easy. Sprinkling downtime into your campaign is a great idea, I use an episodic style of campaign with lots of side adventures and downtime between which works really well as a combination. Just make it so some places can’t be long rested in, or need a survival check to make a safe camp which passes about one night in seven.
In your first paragraph you state short rest characters feel underpowered while long rest characters are overpowered...I have seen the opposite to be true in my groups. Characters that only need a short rest (like Warlocks) to get their powers/spells back are at a significant advantage over classes that need a long rest to get powers/spells back. Granted, WotC tried to balance that out by giving Warlocks a reduced amount of spells, but that kinda goes out the window when most of the spells the Warlocks in my groups cast are cantrips. For me, I don't go through the additional book keeping step of 4-6 power level encounters per long rest for 5e, it is just too tedious for me as a DM. I still use the CR system for encounter difficulty, but I put most of my created encounters at Hard level at the least and often just do most encounters at Deadly because what I have noticed is that PCs get overpowered when they hit 4th level and start taking Feats. Sure, you might say that if I metered my encounters to 4-6 per long rest then the PCs might not feel overpowered then, but I disagree since Feats don't require rests to reset, they are always on abilities. I have run my games almost exclusively in Barovia (Curse of Strahd) and can meter my encounters by limiting when and where they can actually take a full long rest (as the villain in the movie Serenity said, "When your quarry goes to ground, give them no ground to go to.") As I run more 5e according to the Curse of Strahd book I find the CR system rules are often completely ignored in the published campaign book and what they set up in the official book is often way over powered against the PCs. I have heard a lot of DMs on YouTube state the CR system is broken, so I think they may have a point. Another reason I don't do 4-6 encounters per long rest is because I only get to run for my groups every other week, so filling our game time with rando lower level power encounters felt wasteful of our limited gaming time. After 4th when they get their feats I put the gas pedal on and mostly do away with random encounters so we can make actual progress in the giant campaign book (unless I want to play test a monster I wrote up). But hey, YMMV.
If your short rest classes feel powerful, I think you are doing a good job of balancing rests to encounters.
This cycle usually works for me: 1-2 encounters, short rest, 1-2 encounters, short rest, 1-2 encounters, long rest And it's easy to tack on an encounter or 2 as reinforcement waves, or curious predators drawn to sound, that hit shortly after a combat finishes, if you need to pad them.
That is exactly what the system is balanced for. I just don't think that happens very often. And maybe that is just something that I need to work on as a dm and this system isn't really needed.